Steven Morris “Homeless ex-pianist Anne Naysmith dies in road accident” http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/feb/11/homeless-ex-pianist-anne-naysmith-dies-in-road-accident
Steven Morris “From concert pianist to lady in the car: the extraordinary life of Anne Naysmith” http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/feb/11/extraordinary-life-anne-naysmith-pianist-lady-in-car
英国では或るホームレス女性の死が話題になっている。 Anne Naysmith。1937年生まれの彼女はピアニストとしてのキャリアを順調に積み重ねながらも、或る時、私生活においても仕事においても人生に躓き、倫敦西部のチズウィック*1で30年以上も、あらゆる社会福祉的援助を拒みながら、ホームレスとして生きてきた。そして、交通事故でその生命を落とした。
“From concert pianist to lady in the car: the extraordinary life of Anne Naysmith”から少し抜き書き；
Naysmith was born plain Anne Smith – she tacked on the “Nay” in her later years – in Essex in 1937. She and her family moved to Hounslow, west London, when Anne was eight. She was a promising pianist and won a place at the Royal Academy of Music.At 18, Naysmith rented a room in Chiswick. She took a job teaching music at a convent school in Berkshire and also taught at Trinity College of Music in London. Careful with her money, she managed to save enough to buy a Ford Consul and to move into better digs at 22 Prebend Gardens in Chiswick.
Her musical career seemed to be taking off. When she was 25 she played Beethoven, Bach and Debussy at Leighton House in Holland Park, west London, and she went on to perform symphony concerts under the auspices of Sir Adrian Boult. In 1967 her mother hired the Wigmore Hall in central London and Naysmith took top billing. A reviewer from the Times praised the “rich warmth” of her interpretation of Rachmaninov.
By the early 70s she had given up teaching and run into money problems. At about the same time a romance with a choral singer failed. Her financial position worsened until, to her horror, she was asked to leave her lodgings. Believing she had been wronged, she took to sleeping in her car nearby and agitated to get her rooms back. She never did.
このSteven Morris記者は10年以上に亙って彼女を取材している。家はなくとも、誰もが知る〈街の主〉的な存在であったようだ。
In 2002 her beloved car was towed away after a neighbour complained it was blighting the area, which had become gentrified since Naysmith first moved in*2 . She carved a makeshift shelter out of vegetation in at the foot of an embankment, where she cooked and tended to her little garden.In 2012 her hideaway was left in tatters when workers hacked back the vegetation and cut down the cherry and plum trees she had planted*3 . Transport for London said the workers had not realised the plot was special. She was devastated but set about replanting and restoring the garden.
She slept elsewhere. Neighbours would never say where, in order to protect her, but it is thought that for more than 10 years she bedded down in a school doorway most nights. She would arrive after night classes finished and would be gone before school began the next morning.
See also
Steven Morris “Anne Naysmith: The lady in the car“ http://www.theguardian.com/society/2002/may/08/homelessness.g2
*1:See eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiswick
*2:Steven Morris “End of the road for woman who lived in a car” http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/mar/08/london.livingstone
*3:Steven Morris “Transport for London razes homeless woman's shelter” http://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/aug/30/transport-london-homeless-shelter
